


Strange Bedfellows

by Tonko



Series: Strange Bedfellows [4]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-27
Updated: 2011-07-27
Packaged: 2017-10-21 19:37:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/228978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tonko/pseuds/Tonko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zoro the Demon hunts vampires. Thus, Sanji's nightly routine is interrupted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strange Bedfellows

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written as anon at op_fanforall on Livejournal, then posted at my LJ, expanded and tweaked. The original prompt was "AU: Sanji is a vampire and Zoro usually hunts them. This time it's not going to be that easy. +100 points if Sanji has a fire Imp named Ace that gets jelous at the scene going down (and perhaps horny as well). +1000 points if there is hot descriptive sex."
> 
> Contains some elements that veer towards dub-con.
> 
> Thanks to the awesome [printfogey](http://archiveofourown.org/users/printfogey/profile) for the beta :D any remaining errors are all mine.

"A fucking sword? Anyone ever let you know you're supposed to use stakes?" Sanji grunted past the knee in his stomach and pressed his head back against the stone wall of the estate's gatehouse to keep the cold metal from pressing further into his skin. He'd only been planning to sneak in and finally meet that pretty new scullery maid. Her young beauty had enchanted him, and he was eager to discover the smell and taste of the heat under her sun-browned skin.

Usually the shadows were enough to let him slip past any normal human eyes. Anyone who could spot him under shadow at night was a trained vampire killer. There hadn't been any true vampires in this lord's lands for years, between the efforts of Krieg's militia and Sanji's detestation of his pureblood relatives. Sanji alone remained, giving the land a population of exactly half a vampire.

"Beheading's worked just fine on your type so far," his attacker grunted, and Sanji saw the green fire flicker in the man's eyes, making them visible below the black cloth tied over his head.

Sanji's eye darted to what else he could see of him. Three earrings glinted in his ear. Three sword scabbards at his hip, one empty just now, its inhabitant threatening to open up Sanji's throat. Astonishing.

This was the vampire hunter Roronoa Zoro, the Demon, who'd laid waste to vampire nests across the country. His presence here was, strictly speaking, something the militia should have eliminated as emphatically as they'd tried to eliminate Sanji, because the nickname was no accident. Roronoa was a half-demon, and while it was not very visible, Sanji could feel it in the strength of him, power no human could hope to muster, though Sanji suspected they were evenly matched.

But the Demon was renowned—Sanji felt a sneer spread over his face, covering envy at the man's freedom—and his unique parentage was ignored by most people in favour of letting him unleash the capacity for violence he had against the things humans feared.

He wasn't particularly ugly, though. The weight of his body would have been extremely pleasant, if it hadn't been for the sword at Sanji's throat and the knee in his gut.

So this hunter was after him. Hired on, most likely. The militia knew Sanji was still here. Hard not to—he'd been picking them off steadily since they'd burned him out of his home.

Sanji had grown up in this town, after Zeff had found him—well, been attacked by him, for the bag he carried—scavenging food in a port city, eight years old and still not come into most of his vampire heritage. He'd gotten ten years of working at Zeff's inn, and then the old lord had died, and Krieg had come back to take power, and the idyllic times had ended.

Krieg only barely tolerated even the benign non-human races, the elves and kobolds and dwarves, unable to deny the benefits of trade they offered that kept the town thriving.

"Suspect" half-breeds, though—individuals generally products of physical or magical rape by demon, or werebeast, or vampire—were, by Krieg's law, to be exterminated, just as their full-blooded monster relatives would be.

And the biggest inn in town had, for ten years, had one working in the kitchen.

There'd been no warrants, no warning. The inn had been stormed, fire set to the building, even with guests in the rooms upstairs. Zeff had lost his leg, Sanji his eye, and, faced with the threat of everyone he'd ever known being imprisoned or worse for even associating with him, Sanji had let himself be chased deep into the woods that blanketed the land around the town.

It shouldn't have surprised him, even now. Zeff had been refused business permissions in an endless list of places because the too-skinny child next to him was not fully human. Until here. And so Sanji had become accustomed, over time, to living like anyone else in town, enjoying his friends and family, serving food to hungry travelers, and charming the ladies.

Then, after Krieg... he'd become the bogeyman.

But. Selectively.

The townsfolk knew, if they saw a skinny, black-clad shadow, they had nothing to fear.

The militia, though... not all of them, but far too many were corrupt, were thugs, were cruel and greedy and for three years Sanji had made sure every crime they committed was taken out of their hide.

He had not expected them to hire outside help. He most certainly had not expected someone known as a defender of the powerless, the wandering hunter who allowed towns, hamlets and farms to live in peace... for him to show up here, just because of Sanji...

Perhaps, Sanji thought, he should just take it as a compliment. He shifted against the bulk of the hunter pinning him and snickered.

So the militia had help. Big deal. Sanji had help of his own. Orange light flared on the hunter's shoulder, illuminating tanned skin and green hair, and he cursed and fell back, smacking at the flames eating at his thin shirt.

"Can't leave you alone for a second, can I?" Ace leaped from Zoro's shoulder to Sanji's. The imp banked his fire as he landed, dimming to a glowing humanoid form.

The Demon glared from below the edge of his bandanna, green eyes glowing in the night-dark, surely as able to see as Sanji was, even with his one remaining eye. The hunter slapped at a pouch on his belt, and smoke poured from it, forming into a grey-haired imp who glowered up at his master. “I don't owe you after this, Roronoa,” the imp growled, and launched himself at Ace. Temporary master, then.

Sanji suppressed his mild annoyance at the loss of his advantage, but no matter. The hunter had already lost the element of surprise, and that was often fatal.

His boot met steel, and he heard Ace's eager laugh off to one side as the imps wrestled. Another flash of fire and they entangled in a roiling ball of smoke and flame.

A second sword was drawn with a ringing threat, and Sanji dodged back, drawing the hunter back from the path to the gatehouse and into the forest off the edge of the road. This was Miss Kaya's home, one of the loveliest and kindest people Sanji had ever known, and Sanji had no intention of allowing her property to be damaged because some idiot with a sword was after him. Plus, Usopp would be pissed, and Sanji didn't want the long-nosed alchemist's stink bombs anywhere near him.

Trees did little to stop the paths of the blades, and Sanji realized, as he admired the sheer power behind each slash and cut, that Zoro's stamina would outlast his, and his speed wouldn't do much good at that point. There was a reason he'd needed to feed tonight.

There was one sure way to get rid of this obstacle, though. And no reason not to have two meals tonight. The swordsman would make a wonderfully filling one, too, he was sure.

Instead of fleeing or attacking, he let himself be driven back, and down, and finally pinned just short of where the sword edges could actually touch his skin, in the nook of two low boulders. Zoro straddled his hips, and Sanji grinned tauntingly. As expected, this provoked Zoro to lower his face to mere inches from Sanji's, teeth gritted and green eyes burning. Typical animal dominance. And insanely stupid, given his opponent.

He leaned just a little nearer, close enough for the sword blades to kiss his throat, close enough to smell the sweat on Zoro's face, and licked his cheek, the salt and warmth welcome and exciting.

Zoro recoiled at the contact, even if, to his credit, the swords remained right where they were. But Sanji could see the effects start, the pupils widen, the flush spread, could feel the heat gather and harden where Zoro sat on him.

"...The fuck did you do to me, vampire?" Zoro snarled, panting already. "This is... impossible. I'm immune!"

Aha. That explained his apparent idiocy. Full vampire saliva was a full-body paralytic and hallucinogenic, an inborn magical ability manifested at will. Some species felt none of the effects, certain demons among them.

Half-breed saliva, however, was distinct. Depending on the luck of the draw, it could be soporific... or aphrodisiac. Sanji's was the latter, when he wanted it to be. The magical infusion had been a significant effort; this man had needed far more than a normal human of the same build. But he was definitely not immune. Sanji grinned.

Sanji could feel the heat, the arousal in the air, a beautiful, strong scent, and he snickered. He reached up and pulled off the hunter's bandanna, uncovering his green hair and short, blunt horns. But for that astonishing hair colour, the horns and the glow of his eyes, he was altogether human-shaped, bearing no resemblance to whatever demonic parent had spawned him, anymore than Sanji resembled a corpse-pale, saggy-skinned, red-mouthed blood drinker, the kind of monster who'd, for some reason, foregone a meal in favour of planting a seed in the belly of the unfortunate woman who'd abandoned Sanji before he could remember her.

Zoro's earrings glinted in the faint moonlight that came through the trees, and his chest heaved, muscles of his neck tight with strain as he fought the massive dose Sanji had given him.

"So what's the mark on my head for, shitty hunter?" Sanji sat up, pushing the swords out of the way with no effort at all. They dropped to the sides. Yes, it was definitely kicking in. He pulled the blades from the hunter's hands and laid them aside.

"Danger to the people of the town," Zoro growled.

"Hah. I see you conduct only the best reconnaissance," Sanji said, and leaned in without quite touching, drawing in a long breath of the rich heat exuding from the hunter's warm body.

"You've killed... lord's armsmen..." Zoro managed, sounding strangled as he fought the arousal Sanji knew would soon overpower him. But the words were an unwelcome jolt of bitterness.

"Ah yes," he hissed, anger distracting from his hunger. "I'm sure the ones who contracted you told you all sorts of stories about the fanged ghoul in the woods, the terror preying upon the town."

"S'what your kind do," Zoro gritted back.

"My kind?" Sanji repeated. "I'm a half-breed, just like you, you _clever_ hunter, or are you too stupid to tell the difference? We don't have a kind."

Zoro's eyes unwillingly darted to the places on Sanji's face that were the most glaringly different from a true vampire: hair instead of mottled bald skin, the eye with a distinguishable iris and pupil instead of completely black, the very human mouth instead of a bloody, lipless gash.

"Wanna know something?" Sanji grinned threateningly, showing his teeth, and touched a tongue to one of his fangs. "These don't do jack shit, they're as obvious and useless as that badly-kept lawn on your head." He leaned in and bit lightly Zoro's neck, laughing at the almost imperceptible flinch, and let one fang drag over the warm skin.

A true vampire's fang would have sliced him open. Sanji's could threaten, could certainly bite like any human's teeth, but in truth, like the hunter's ridiculous hair, they were purely cosmetic signs of his non-human half. "I don't feed off life." He closed his hands around Zoro's belt, and pressed his face into Zoro's neck, breathing in and licking over the hot, sweaty skin. _Have a little more, why don't you?_ . "I feed off lust. I offer myself to women..." he breathed, warming at the thought, thinking of their wonderful soft-curving bodies and the worship he loved to shower on them in thanks, "and I give them pleasure in return for the gift of their arousal." Men were certainly acceptable too, but he imagined Zoro had already gleaned his interest in the less fair sex.

Less fair, indeed, but the flavour of Zoro's building lust was delicious in its own way. And there was so much of it there, like a laden table where a human was a single plate.

Sanji's head spun and he knew, then, that he'd spent much more of himself than he had to spare on overcoming the towering self-control and preparing this man for consumption. Better to hurry. He pulled back to start undoing the laces of his own shirt. The more skin he could touch, the better it would be.

"You're a threat to the town," Zoro seethed, and Sanji yanked his shirt off and bared his teeth.

"I _grew up_ in this town, you ignorant fucker," Sanji put a hand on Zoro's throat, digging his fingers into the muscle, below the pulse point. "Krieg's militia destroyed my home and drove me out. They hurt my family and now they live like he does, parasites of this land. Those men extort and rape their way through the people they should protect." Sanji exacted vigilante sentences on them as required, but there were always more. Maybe it was a waste of effort—better the devil you knew than the endless stream of new hires—but he was not able to let their crimes go unpunished.

He dropped his hand and went to work properly on Zoro's belt, his fingers almost fumbling with the creeping weakness that was taking the place of the energy he'd lost, staring steadily into Zoro's eyes as he undid the buckle. "But I have no regrets about killing any... _thing_ who lays his hands on a woman—or man—or _child_ —like that." He turned his head and spat on the ground. He had left fang marks on all he'd killed, despite their irrelevance to his attacks, as a warning to all the rest. "They befoul the world with their presence." He yanked Zoro's belt free in a moment of more personal fury, remembering the one armsman he'd met who was not a waste of skin... but who refused to leave the service of his lord.

"You... kill them... for rape," Zoro ground out, "and what're you... doing now?"

Sanji paused then, looking up into the green, glowing eyes. Absurd. He laughed, and laughed, and when he looked again Zoro was glaring.

"You just tried to kill me. Not sure you wouldn't try again. Don't fucking take the high road with me now." He leaned forward, pushed Zoro's shirt up and licked over his nipple, feeling it tighten up under his tongue, feeling Zoro arch, however reluctantly, against his mouth. But the accusation stung, even if this was all in retaliation to attempted murder, and this was the last show of power over the man's body he was going to perform.

He planted both hands on Zoro's chest and shoved, sending him sprawling onto his back against the base of a tree, the line of his hard cock obvious through his trousers, and his shirt pulled loose. "But you have a point, I suppose." He reached for his shirt and stood, brushing leaf litter from his pants. He didn't alter his amused expression at the great monster-hunter's state. His control was truly astonishing, to lie still when every fiber of him would be screaming to fuck Sanji into the ground. His lust was shimmering around him like a haze of heat, but he didn't give in to it. “So there, I grant you, my attacker, your virtue,” he smiled mockingly. "And you might consider,” he felt his voice turn to a growl, “if you're going to concern yourself with justifying your hunts, that you don't answer bounties from Lord Krieg's armsmen."

Furious embarrassment poured off the swordsman nearly as heavily as the lust, but Sanji could see the doubt creeping in. He squatted down again, and leaned forward. "Hey. Did you get a room in town? Zeff's has the best rates, you're probably there," he guessed. At the inadvertent nod, he went on. "You see that big old picture on the wall in the common room? The shitty old man and the blond brat with the floppy hair and the pointy teeth? They didn't look so obvious back then," though they'd been obvious enough for the orphanage at to drive him off, "but they grew." He peeled his lips back from his fangs in a snarl. "They burned his old place when they found out I lived there. Almost burned me with it." He tossed his head and saw the telltale blink that meant Zoro had seen the sealed-shut lid of the missing eye under his bangs. Vampire blood healed well, had erased the burns on his face and body, his hair had eventually grown back, but it had not been enough to restore an eye.

Zoro's expression clamped down over the wayward reaction.

"Feh. Fuck it." Sanji stood up again. The hunter would hardly give a shit about a sob story anyway. Enough if he changed his mind about Krieg; Sanji couldn't see any point to venting any more personal hurt, and felt not a little stupid for giving in to the urge in the first place. He satisfied himself with simply glaring down.

He was still hungry, he was vastly _more_ hungry now, with the arousal in the air. Worse, cool weakness was starting to creep into him. He'd just dumped far too much energy into stringing the hunter along, and for far too long, with no satiating orgasm to feed on at the end.

But something in those green eyes had altered, and the look of the hunter facing down prey was gone. Some of Zoro's awareness seemed to have turned inward, preoccupied. Well now, how about that.

A glowing flame flew towards Sanji, and he turn to see Ace flare into his human-sized form, fire flickering at his edges for a moment until he settled, standing next to Sanji. Ace leaned into him, slinging a warm arm around Sanji's neck and looking triumphantly at Zoro. His self-righteous burst of ire fading, Sanji couldn't suppress another smirk at the incredulous annoyance that Zoro glared at the imp

"Where's the shitty smoke guy?" Sanji asked, tying the laces of his shirt again. Ace released his neck and seemed to try swallowing a laugh. He wasn't really successful, and Sanji looked around at him to be met with a shrug and a wink.

"He won't come back to this one," Ace laughed, jerking a thumb at the sprawled swordsman, "but... he knows how to find _me_... if he wants." Ace sounded confident that would be the case, and entirely too hopeful.

Sanji snorted. "You have no standards." An old, and perfectly untrue, slur against his friend.

Ace just gave him a smug look, and Sanji wished, for the millionth time, that he could feed off Ace's faerie energy. There was more than anyone could need pouring off the libidinous imp. Still, he was an entertaining distraction, and a good friend.

*

Lounging in the mansion's kitchen hearth, Ace waited for Sanji and thought about the... interaction he'd engaged in with Smoker. The other imp had looked dour at first, but Ace had cracked that. Smoker might've fulfilled his obligation to Roronoa Zoro and vanished into the night, but not for good, Ace was willing to bet a whole chopped and perfectly-dried hardwood tree on that. Even if it were maple. Oh, for some maple... Ace licked his flames idly around the logs in the kitchen fire, and pulled them in again, hunkering back among the embers. Birch was just so bland.

At least it wasn't pine. Ace curled himself around a nice hot coal for comfort at that thought. Pine was all he'd been fed by Krieg's men, once they'd bought him from Blackbeard. He’d hunted that traitor for Whitebeard and lost, then been put in an iron box and sold. They'd kept him there, fed him sticky, cloying, fresh pine to keep him barely alive, and removed him now and then, always safely incapacitated by cold iron, to amuse themselves with torture.

He'd nearly gone mad.

That he'd gotten free as a side effect of having been used to start the torching of Sanji's old home was something he would never forgive Krieg's men for. That Sanji had broken the chain they'd shackled to him and carried him away from there was something he would never be able to repay. He would stay with Sanji until Sanji had no need of him. He would stay banned from Whitebeard's realm until Krieg died and Ace could finish his hunt.

It was likely those events would coincide. If ever they could discover how to accomplish it.

Ace heard Sanji's approach, and gathered himself back into a more portable form, crouching on top of the log. It had been well past midnight when they'd encountered the hunter. Now, he could see through a nearby window, the sky was just beginning to lighten, and would be only another two hours or so before dawn. The sun wouldn't kill Sanji—though the instant sunburns Ace had seen him catch on exposed skin were terrible—but it made it far more difficult to hide.

Sanji came into the kitchen and stopped at the hearth. "Move it," he snapped, and Ace flitted to his shoulder, pulling himself in tight to his smallest glow, and hid under Sanji's collar, concerned by his tone.

With good reason. Sanji hadn't fed, Ace realized quickly. He could feel it in the stagger of Sanji's gait as he navigated the shadows that kept him invisible to human eyes.

They made it off the estate grounds and into the forest's edge before Ace dared show himself again and he flared out into human-size, grabbing for Sanji's arms before he stumbled yet again.

"What happened?"

Sanji's sharp blue eye met his, flat fury in his expression. "Krieg's newest guard captain happened. She was... fuck!" Sanji snarled and bared his teeth, "she was so afraid." Sanji looked nauseated under the pallor of his hunger. "I found her friend to take care of her... she hadn't told yet... but I can't hunt, like this..." he looked upwards, panting angrily at the lightening sky, lurching against Ace's grip.

"Tomorrow night," Ace promised. For now, Sanji had to get himself over to—

Sanji's dark scowl turned to a baring of teeth, and then, to Ace's horror, he passed out.

Fuck. The fight, of course, all that futile non-consummated grappling with the hunter. Sanji didn't need to feed like this nightly, he still ate like a human too, but none of that food could replace what his vampire half required to survive. And he'd spent the last three days holding out past his normal comfort, preparing and leaving little gifts for his newest interest, letting her know the nighttime lover that haunted the woods craved her company. He'd been courting her gently, once having discovered her willingness. Sanji disliked being hungry, but he would often hold out when approaching someone new or shy rather than visiting someone already familiar with him. Chivalrous approaches trumped feeding.

Usually there was no worry; Ace knew that a little hunger would make any taste better in the end, and there were a few reliable people Sanji could always go to if he had to.

But Sanji had to be able to _get_ to them. And now he'd tangled with that hellspawned hunter, and shot past mild discomfort into dangerous malnourishment. All the energy Sanji had had to pour into that fight, the gathering of himself to feed on the vampire hunter, all wasted.

And Ace couldn't do a fucking thing about it, needed to get Sanji someone before he got too weak. If he didn't, Sanji would soon be impossible to awaken, and he'd sleep, and he'd die.

He got Sanji up onto his back, the tell-tale coolness of his body making Ace shudder. He had to resist the urge to let out some of his own heat to combat it; Sanji's chill was a symptom of starvation, and no fire would warm that.

He started walking, the slow pace of movement in this form maddening, and punishingly tiring, but unavoidable. He'd get Sanji home first. The distance to town was too far for Ace to maintain this larger form and carry Sanji at the same time, let alone navigate around the militia guards on patrol. Home, then help.

*

Zoro hadn't moved much from where the vampire had left him. Refusing to give in to the effects of the vampire's tongue on his skin, it had felt like ages before the arousal had ebbed even the slightest on its own, or at least enough to let him move without the mere sensation of his clothes moving over his skin sending spreading waves of heat over his skin and straight to his cock. The sense memories of the vampire under him had barely faded either, not the slick heat of his tongue or the lean, hot strength of his body. The scent was strongest of all in his mind, perfectly sharp and distinct, mingled spice and skin and a hint of the sharp, metallic scent of a full vampire. It was unique, and Zoro knew that he'd be able to track that scent anywhere.

Not that he wanted to. Intellectually. But though his still-overheated body was voracious for that skinny half-breed, he was damned if he was going to let some vampire drool get the better of him.

Somewhat distracting from that issue, but hardly any easier to think about, was the fresh light the vampire had shed on the state of things in these lands, and it stung, it ate at him like acid to have had it pointed out that he might have become lazy, have begun to simply take an easy way to his goal. The hunts he was renowned for, eliminating the predators that kept the small towns in the grip of fear...

Kuina had always said—while smacking him down repeatedly during their training, demon blood or no demon blood—that becoming a protector for those who couldn't protect themselves was the greatest goal she could imagine. The renown of a world's gratitude...

Of course, Kuina had never needed protection from physical threats. She'd been the best. What had taken her, far too soon, had been nothing more than the viciousness of bad luck, and it was left to Zoro to pursue their dream alone, earn the name for them both.

But he'd wandered from the path it seemed, something he was unfortunately prone to do when not tracking his prey, literally or otherwise. Killing vampires was all well and good. Killing the threats town leaders begged him to save them from was certainly worthy of his goal. But failing to notice other threats, truer threats... agreeing to hunt a bounty without seeking any details other than the remuneration... He tightened his hand around Kuina's sword.

And here, a man, fanged and half-brother to monsters though he might be, was marked for death as he defended the people around him, and it smacked of negligent expedience that Zoro had not discovered that beforehand. They were vanishingly rare, to be sure, but half-breed vampires weren't the purely monstrous threats of their savage cousins. Products of violence, yes, but they varied so widely in their combinations of inherited parental traits that condemning them all was like condemning all of humanity for the acts of a few. Like this Krieg.

Krieg's men hadn't told him the vampire was a half-breed. If it hadn't been for his moment of hesitation on realizing that after spotting the telltale movement in the shadows, if he hadn't paused on seeing the blond hair and handsome face instead of black, cruel eyes and a bloody-mouthed grin, his sword would have been through that pale neck without a second thought.

A half-remembered snatch of overheard conversation came back to him, from when he’d been eating his supper in the Baratie Inn’s common room.

"...Know you haven’t seen him. He said ‘happy birthday, shitty old man.’ Er, his words not mine, of course, Mister Zeff." A young man’s voice, nervous, and Zoro could remember a lingering impression of a ridiculously long nose and a mass of black hair, as well as the bluntly pointed ears, wide mouth and slightly protruding lower canines of a human with some fraction of kobold ancestry. Zoro tended to automatically note the presence of any halfbreed, but while part-kobolds were uncommon, the full-bloods were a frequent enough sight in any town, usually wood or metalworking craftspeople. Longnose had continued, handing over a covered basket, "He made these for you, and got me enough stinging nettle for the apothecary to make a new batch of tea for your summer colds."

"Thanks, kid." Owner Zeff’s voice had been strained and gruff. "Now shaddup, there’s a hunter in town waiting on his drinks." And Zoro had been served his beer, idly noticing the way the Longnose's brown skin had paled, not particularly caring because that sort of reaction tended to happen around him more often than not.

Now, Zoro sat up, cross-legged, swords across his knees. "Fucking lover-boy," he gritted. His skin still tingled even just under the pressure of the air.

Clumsy crashing through the woods behind him made him turn, and his eyes widened involuntarily at the pressure his change of position put on his stubborn, painful erection. He forced himself to focus, suppress the tinging heat, sniff the air, and he drew a blade just as the fire imp from earlier stumbled into view, human-sized and carrying the vampire on his back. The vampire looked limp, pale head lolling forward on the imp's shoulder, his arms hanging down.

The vampire’s scent surrounded Zoro; he was far too sensitive to it now. It was more distinct than anything else in the area, with the vampire so close, almost drowning out the damp night-smells of the forest floor beneath him, the dry, ashy scent of the imp. And it smelled way too fucking _good_.

Zoro and the imp faced off a moment, but Zoro made no move to attack. He was not in any state to engage in real combat, and anyway after this extremely disorienting encounter, he had no intention of killing the vampire. But one could never be sure about the faerie races, imps especially.

The imp watched the sword, looking like any protective guard animal might, but there was urgency under his wary stillness that made Zoro... not concerned. Call it curious.

"What happened to him? All fucked out?" he asked, and the imp narrowed his eyes.

"Hardly. The girl—Krieg's armsman got her—she was—" the imp bit off his next words and Zoro's insides congealed as he filled in the blanks himself. The imp watched him darkly, mouth twitching in a grim acknowledgment of his understanding. "If you're going to protest him killing another one, tell me now so I can take you out."

Zoro lowered his sword, and didn't bother pointing out that the imp looked like he was growing visibly more unsteady with every passing moment. That large form, and solid, and carrying weight to boot, would be exhausting him. "I'm not interested in their well-being anymore." Zoro looked at the vampire's unconscious form. The pallor in his hands let the blue of veins show through, even in the washed-out colours of nighttime vision. The difference was disturbing, given the short time it had been. "Is he hurt?" If his senses hadn't been so completely out of whack and oversaturated by the halfbreed's mere presence, he would have caught the taint underlying the scent right away, the smell of a body turning on itself for lack of nourishment.

"He hasn't had anyone in days. He's gonna die if I don't get him safe and find him someone soon. And the sun's going to rise, if you hadn't noticed. Please excuse me." The politeness was jarring, considering the urgency behind it.

Because this vampire wouldn't just slowly weaken like a human. He wouldn't have the luxury of long days to wait and starve... when his physical body became too weak, the magic that made his other half would bleed away, taking his mind with it, and then his life. The same was true for Zoro, for any halfbreed of magical descent. But Zoro lacked such stringent dietary requirements.

"Can't he use you? You looked eager enough before." All this freak needed was a fuck, after all. Not blood.

The imp held up a hand, expression frustrated, and it turned to flame for a moment. "Wrong kind. Faerie is no good, blood or anything else. Now, goodbye. You took enough of his energy already." The imp resettled the vampire on his back and headed onward.

Zoro stood then, clenching his teeth around a nearly audible reaction to the tightening of his trousers over his cock. He set his shoulders against the distraction and followed. "What the hell, I took? He was the one trying to take it from me!"

"He primed you. Takes effort. Also, that's why you're still hot and bothered." The imp's grim smirk was audible, even as he forged ahead through the undergrowth.

"Get him to take it back!" Zoro shouted after him.

"It'll wear off on its own," the imp snapped back. "Eventually. Give it a day or two." He stopped and turned, and Zoro halted, pinned by a narrow, careful gaze. "Unless... you wanna feed him yourself."

The words hung in the cool night air for a few moments, then the imp snorted derisively and moved on.

Zoro stayed where he stood. Two days of this was unacceptable. It really was.

If the vampire had done this to him, been stupid enough to lose this much energy and risk dying, the vampire could damn well undo it and get it back himself. "Fine!" he barked, and hurried to catch up to the imp.

Zoro almost bumped into the vampire's hoisted form when Ace stopped abruptly, halting himself just before they collided. The imp turned towards him, tired relief all over his face, and some jealousy as well, and despite himself, Zoro felt a pang of compassion. The fire imp was not some subjugated faerie servant, it seemed, he was staying willingly with his friend. "You're gonna help?" he asked. Zoro nodded stiffly. "Follow me," the imp said, and led Zoro on, his hurry obvious, as was the way his gait was getting gradually more unsteady and dogged.

They came to an unprepossessing cleft in the wall of a low cliff. An earthy, twisting tunnel with just enough height to walk through gave way to a smooth-hewn stone hallway. The imp flicked fire at sconces in the walls, and the hall lit properly to show something that wouldn't have been out of place in a normal one-room house, but for the lack of windows and the chill in the air from being underground

Lanterns were sparked to life next, illuminating the room fully. Near the entry was a hearth and chairs, a couple of bookshelves. Past that, against the back wall, was a wide bed and clothes chest. In the middle was a sturdy table, draped in a ridiculously domestic blue-checked cloth, and benches.

This was unreal. Vampires didn’t live in homey dens. They holed up in old underground tombs or labyrinthine tunnel systems lit by candles, decorated with stolen fabrics like brocade or silk and plenty of wrought iron to fight or imprison their faerie enemies. They slept in earth, not on beds.

This one had a fire imp _roommate_. He had—gods, he really did—charcoal portraits arranged in frames on the mantle. Zoro took a step, stared at a rendering of the owner of the Baratie, at another of two unfamiliar men in cook aprons, both images scrawled with the signature _Great Artist Usopp_. Blinking in consternation, Zoro turned to see, on the wall opposite, a cooking stove, counters, and an icebox.

"An icebox?" Zoro muttered, trying to keep focus. The vampire's scent was everywhere here, it seemed like it was the air itself and Zoro took a deep, involuntary breath, inhaling as much of it as he could.

"He likes," the imp was breathing hard from the exertion of carrying his friend, "he likes food. Told me, before he came into his powers, he ate like any human. He still does, half the time. And he likes feeding people as much as he likes eating. It's like he got starved as a kid or something."

"What, he holds dinner parties down here?"

The imp made an annoyed sound. "He cooks... he brings food to people who need it. And take your boots off, he hates dirty floors."

As Zoro bent to unlace his boots, the imp hauled the vampire to the bed, almost dropping him when he laid him down.

Glancing up at the heavy sound of the vampire's body landing on the bed, Zoro was startled by the ugly, dull-black mark scarred into the imp's back. Though imps were faeries, could form themselves into whatever human shape they desired... that was a mark that, once branded, would always show, no matter the form: an iron-rune. A mark purely for faerie enslavement that focused the neutralizing effects of cold iron into a simple rule of some kind. Zoro recognized most of the runic pattern on this one. The imp could not attack... someone. The odds, Zoro suspected, lay on that someone being Krieg, or these two would have taken that keep by storm long ago.

"Sanji," the imp said exhaustedly, patting at the vampire's cheek, then shaking him gently. "Sanji. There's someone. Wake up."

Sanji shifted, barely. "Ace?" His lean body was sprawled loose on the blanket, and the lust that had been pulsing relentlessly but somewhat controlled in Zoro for the duration of the walk flared suddenly through his whole body.

"Yeah. Good. Stay awake."

Ace steadied himself with one hand on the headboard, and looked back at Zoro. A quick glance up and down seemed to dispel any lingering doubts the imp might've had. Zoro frowned at the minor huff of amusement Ace gave at his state, and maintained the glower as Ace picked up a corked glass bottle on the side table and held it up for him to see. Yes, fine, oil. Zoro clenched his jaw and waited for Ace to leave.

The imp put the bottle down with the over-deliberate care of someone utterly exhausted. "Thank you," Ace said heavily, then pushed himself back from the bed with a stagger. He closed his eyes and, with a sigh, melted into fire. The human shape guttered immediately to a faint, flame-coloured glow with a black knot at its center, nothing like the healthy glow of a normal fire imp. He was truly drained.

Moving in an uneven path to the hearth, Ace landed. Nothing happened, which seemed anticlimactic, and Zoro stepped forward to peer behind the gate.

There were coals, barely glowing in a bed of ashes, but nothing more. There were cut lengths of wood stacked to one side of the hearth, and Zoro, after a pause, grabbed a few and tossed them in. Fire instantly licked up over them in a way no simple embers would ever have caused, and Zoro saw the flames gather to become the glowing outline of Ace’s smaller form, faintly humanoid for a moment. He looked briefly up at Zoro before collapsing again to pure hungry fire.

The imp gave off heat, already radiating warmth out into the rest of the den, but no smoke, burning completely clean. That seemed convenient; there seemed to be some kind of chimney that would allow smoke out, but a large fire could give away the location. It seemed Ace could warm and light this whole place easily, though. Zoro tossed another length of wood onto the fire for good measure.

Then he shook himself. What the fuck. He'd suddenly become nursemaid to a fire imp and a vampire he'd been fighting just hours ago.

Only... not nursemaid. He turned on his heel and stared at the bed. Sanji looked asleep again, too pale, too similar to the sickly white of a full vampire's flesh. Zoro could make out, now that Sanji was under the light, the resemblance to that little kid in the painting on the wall at the inn. The funny-looking eyebrow was certainly the same, the hair colour... but he was a man now instead of a boy.

The sight made his heart speed up. Drawn by the resurging pull of his desire, Zoro moved to the bed, his arousal intensifying as he came near the side. Sanji reacted when the distance between them was closed, breath hitching and fingers twitching. His eye opened slowly, blue, but glassy, and met Zoro’s with complete incredulity and what looked like oddly reluctant hostility.

"Ah, gods, you..." He struggled with difficulty to his elbows and glared. His anger was undermined by the fixed stare at Zoro's body and the hungry swallow that left his lips parted.

"I was invited by your fucking annoying imp," Zoro said, and Sanji's forehead knitted with confusion as he worked with visible strain at tearing his focus back to his original reaction. "You did this to me, and he said that screwing you would fix it."

Sanji blinked a moment, then collapsed back, laughing weakly and miserably. "Ace..." he groaned. "Go away, idiot. He lied. Just go... jerk off somewhere. When you come, it'll fade. You probably just... tried to wait it out because you're a... boneheaded steelhound who worships at the altar of self-control."

"...What." Zoro stared down at him.

"Shitty imp. He tricked you. You don't need this. I'm... sorry. You can.... rrgh... go away." Sanji heaved himself onto his side, facing away from Zoro. "Go the fuck away, I can feel you when you're that close and it's—I didn't figure you as into torture."

He could leave, then, he was being offered a dismissal, free and clear. A moment of personal weakness would be much easier to brush off than doing anything at all with some literally sex-starved half-breed vampire. Except... Zoro could not allow someone to die when they deserved to live, that was not the way things should be, not how he and Kuina had planned to live. He wouldn't allow it.

"You're gonna fade if you don't eat."

"Fuck... you, I'll be fine," Sanji said, his voice a laboured effort, but still audibly bristling at the implication.

"Fuck _you_ , vampire, and take responsibility. You did this to me, _you_ undo it." Threadbare excuse, perhaps, but giving voice to his recently manifested desire to just _help_ was definitely not going to happen. His contrition for hunting this man made him stubborn about seeing this through... but the unfamiliarity of that feeling made him even less likely to express it aloud.

Actions were more important here anyway.

He reached out and grabbed Sanji's shoulder, pulling him to lie flat again. Sanji rolled far too easily, given the strength and energy he'd battled with earlier.

The contact was also all that was needed to put an end to Sanji's attempts at self-sacrificing resistance. Sanji inhaled deeply as Zoro touched him, as though reaching for a scent himself, hands twitching at his sides.

Momentarily slowed by unnerved fascination, Zoro slid his hand over Sanji’s chest, up to the collar of his shirt.

Sanji was cool. No, he was _cold_. It was disturbing; Zoro's body remembered the heat that had radiated from him earlier, his whole body had been perfectly attuned to that warmth. Under Zoro’s hand, Sanji still breathed, still moved in response to the contact, but the chill in him recalled far too well the rapid loss of heat from a body no longer alive. For Sanji, for Zoro, for any half-breed of a magical race, this was the beginning of the end.

Sanji was not gone yet, he was aware and speaking, he hadn't crossed that point of no return, but he was too near. Zoro rubbed more heavily over his chest, like he could just push the heat back into him.

"Nng, warm," Sanji grunted, arching weakly up against Zoro's palm. Zoro moved a his hand a little higher, daring to touch flesh instead of cloth. His fingertips found cold, pale skin above the collar, and then Sanji's arms moved, fingers latching onto Zoro's wrist weakly but very desperate, and Zoro felt the racing current of heat in him widen to a flood.

He really was going to do this. Such an about face, in so few hours. Like that time he'd been lost for weeks, until a cliffside had crumbled under his feet and carried him in a slide of stone and earth back to the path he'd been seeking the whole time.

He fumbled, wrong-handed, at his belt, working the buckle open and pulling his hand from Sanji's protesting grip to catch his swords and lay them on the floor. "You're so warm," Sanji repeated with a longing groan, and Zoro felt a hand at his waist, fingers curling under the waist of his trousers, blocked from bare skin by his tucked-in shirt.

He pulled his shirt off and Sanji's icy fingers tightened and dragged, the other hand reaching up to paw at Zoro's stomach. Zoro sat, undid his pants and pushed them off, then descended over Sanji, stripping him of his shirt, shoving a knee between his thighs and pressing him down into the mattress. Sanji's arms curled around his sides.

"You're weak," Zoro said, astonished at the difference between this cold, feebly moving body beneath his and the amazingly quick and vital one he'd raised swords against. Sanji's fingernails dug into his skin, barely, in response. "Wouldn't have lasted a day, lover-boy. You're like a fucking snow bank, and you couldn't fight a butterfly." He slid down Sanji's body, unfastening Sanji's belt and yanking it free.

An exploratory palm over Sanji’s groin revealed he was completely flaccid, cock as limp as his body, and Zoro felt a weird wash of insult, empathy and determination. It wasn’t really surprising; just now, Sanji's body was concerned only with sustenance, it would be pointless for it to waste further energy on anything else. A glance up revealed a wincing frown on Sanji's face, though, and Zoro kept his mouth shut, just got on with pulling his trousers away.

Still... he pressed his mouth to Sanji's lower belly, felt as well as heard the responsive moan, and Sanji's hands dragged up into his hair, fingers catching on his horns, tracing clumsily around the bases and combing through his hair.

A little lower, Sanji's soft cock was a cool, fragile weight in his hand. He cupped it gently, moving his fingers over the delicate, wrinkled skin. He pressed his nose to the base, inhaling the muskier flavour of Sanji's scent there. Exhaling over his cock, Zoro tried a gentle stroke, and felt no measurable response, but Sanji moved against his grip and Zoro figured it was just a matter of time. So, first things first. He kneeled up and sat back, pulling Sanji up to sit between his legs, ending up with an armful of slow-moving but extremely eager vampire.

"You taste like steel," Sanji breathed, and spread his cold hands against Zoro's chest, "I can feel it, steel and..." He rested his face down on Zoro's shoulder, inhaling the warm air gathering between them. "Steel and _will_... goes on forever..."

Sanji undulated against him, burying his face in Zoro's neck, mouth opening, wet tongue sliding against his skin. Sanji licked over his neck, and Zoro braced for, but didn't feel, the mind-clogging lust from before. But he’d been primed, or something, Ace had said, so maybe no more was needed. He didn't care. His arousal still surged with its intent and hungry pulse, and the vampire's mouth was simply normal, if cool, welcome wet friction. Teeth scraped, followed by another swipe of wet tongue, and Zoro grunted at the scratch of blunt fangs. _Almost_ normal.

"Come for me," Sanji groaned, and Zoro's arms tightened around his cold body in automatic response to that idea, "fuck me, something, just come."

Zoro growled, the pleading in Sanji' s voice defusing the automatic resistance to following any orders from this incapacitated skirt-chaser. He leaned forward to drop Sanji onto his back and swipe the bottle Ace had shown him earlier.

He poured oil onto his palm, smoothing it over his cock, then poured out a little more. He pulled Sanji over onto his front, shoved an arm under his waist and pulled his ass up, getting his knees under him. He spread the palmful of oil over his hole, and pushed a fingertip in. No resistance beyond normal muscle tone—Sanji had neither strength nor tension in him right now. Zoro tried two fingers at once. They went in easy, and Sanji made a muffled sound against the blanket, pushing back.

Zoro sat back and hauled Sanji up onto his lap. His oiled-up hands slipped a little at his waist, so he slid them lower, grabbed handfuls of well-muscled ass and lifted. He spread him apart, lowered him smoothly down, and his cock slipped easily past the snug but unresisting ring of muscle. Sanji was slick, soft inside, but so cold.

"Warm," Sanji breathed, and rested all his weight back against Zoro's chest. He swallowed audibly, mouth opening to let the wet sound out, and Zoro realized his own mouth was open. He put out his tongue, touching the skin of Sanji's back. Still far too cool, but he tasted of that sweat-spice that had been filling Zoro's head since their earlier encounter. The taste put the scent to shame, though, for sheer magnetic effect on his lust. He secured his grip on Sanji's ass and lifted him, lowering him and rocking his hips in a shallow thrust upward as their bodies met.

*

Sanji's bone-deep chill had begun to ease the moment Zoro's hand had landed on his chest. The fog of arousal hanging over the half-demon, thick and wonderful, promised to fill the starving void, and it had nearly killed him to admit Ace's deceit and free the hunter from being falsely cornered.

Not literally; Sanji would not have faded to death from one day like this, despite the hunter's apparent concerns and Ace's familiar overprotectiveness. Sanji knew that very well from too-frequent painful experience. It had happened before, him reaching this state, when Krieg’s men were on the hunt, when he’d had to hide. This time, as before, Ace would have found someone safe to visit him when it became possible again.

But starving... he had not been exaggerating, calling it torture. The day would have been a horror. Sanji couldn't sleep hungry. And hunger was worse to him than any kind of pain.

No horror now. Just relief. The lust in this man had a raw edge to it, primal. The burning half-demon energy, the blood that gave him the indomitable strength Sanji could feel in those hard muscles, it was all driving the lust now, exertion that Sanji drank in with every breath and thrust and clench. Sanji saw the green fire in his mind's eye as the vibrant warmth of Zoro's body and the life-sustaining thick heat of his lust began to fill him up.

Lifted and lowered, the hunter's blood-hot cock sliding into him, strong hands supported him with ease so that Sanji needed do nothing but taste the steadily mounting pressure of Zoro's arousal. He breathed it in, absorbed it at each point their bodies touched. It was a teasing taste only, even now, but the hunger was so much easier to bear when he could feel its ease approaching.

Lust filled the air, swollen and heavy and Sanji felt it against every inch of him, took it into himself eagerly. It wasn’t enough yet, but soon, soon...

And he wasn't lowered, the last time, so much as yanked, Zoro's mouth opened against his back, and he came.

The rushing explosion of Zoro's climax left the surrounding pressure of lust in the dust, and Sanji fed at last, gasping and clutching at Zoro's arms. He found himself drawing on a seemingly endless well of sustenance, as much as he wanted, no fear of reaching too far, taking too much. There was more than he could ever need in this outpouring of energy.

The all-pervading chill was gone in an instant, banished with Sanji's hunger, and he almost wanted to sob with relief. He felt supported and satiated; the release from the sheer agony of this extreme hunger was, as ever, a blessed escape from his terrifying memories of starvation.

He felt Zoro’s hands pull from beneath him, and his arms sliding around his middle. Sanji was warm, oh, so warm, at last, and Zoro was warm against him, solid chest against his back. One arm tightened across his chest, fingers spreading wide, the other reached down between his legs. "Warmed up?" Zoro asked, and Sanji could feel that deep voice down to his bones.

"Yeah," Sanji said, eyes closed. He was surrendered to the slide of skin against his own, now that his attention was released from the narrow focus of feeding. Zoro's forefinger and thumb grasped and stroked along his cock, sliding the foreskin back and forth and sending the easy beginnings of pleasure up and out through Sanji's body.

Sanji moaned quietly, contentedly, and then the reciprocation made some of the reality of the situation seep back, and Sanji shifted reluctantly to hold his wrist. "You don't have to—"

"Shut up," Zoro said, without any bite. Sanji sighed in affirmative acknowledgment. If Zoro _wanted_ to...

Sanji relaxed into the attention, slouched in Zoro’s arms, still too shaky in the aftermath of his weakness to want to do more than be touched. At that, Zoro did let him go, but lifted him first, turning him and laying him on his back. Sanji let himself be settled, instinctive resistance to letting himself be manhandled shredded by the directly opposing desire to _be_ handled by this man right now, to just feel and enjoy the touch itself.

"Hm," Zoro grunted, sounding self-satisfied, and Sanji shifted languorously under two wide, warm hands. Fingertips landed again on his cock. Sanji sighed as he felt himself hardening further under the surprisingly gentle grip. He reached down, finding short, soft hair, and those blunt little horns. Sanji rather liked those, and he ran his fingers from the rounded points down to the bases. "S'more like it," Zoro muttered. "Lot better to look at when you're not half-dead, lover-boy."

Sanji felt like he should reply with an appropriately rude insult, but all he managed was a wordless murmur with only the barest hint of confrontation. Then wet heat surrounded the head of his cock, and he had nothing left to say at all.

Such easy arousal, when full and warm, he so often took it for granted, but it was new and luxurious tonight, from the lingering ache in his ass to the thorough, confident attentions of the strangest bed partner he'd ever had.

*

Zoro watched Sanji as he sucked and slid his tongue along the silky-hard cock that had at last come to life. The heat now radiating from Sanji's body was reassuringly normal, and Zoro felt an oddly possessive sense of pride to know that he'd been the one to restore this heat and life to him. That little shit in the hearth was _made_ of fire, and hadn't been able to do a damned thing.

Now Sanji was responding as a man should, hard and hot, a flush in his face, his hands gripping and nudging at Zoro's head. Those long fingers moved unashamedly through his hair, brushing over and rubbing around the bases of his horns with casual ease. No one had ever done that before, always avoiding, and Zoro felt a funny rush of enjoyment at the casualness with which Sanji touched them, traced them, nudged them with his thumbs to guide Zoro's motions

Feeling generous enough to acknowledge the directions that Sanji's hands were giving him, Zoro stroked in tandem with the rhythm Sanji wanted, feeling for the twitches in tension of the lean stomach muscles under the palm of his other hand.

Soon, Sanji let out a long, hissing sigh, and Zoro felt tugs in his hair that made him lift away. Sanji slid a hand down to his shoulder, and Zoro was drawn up until he was lying alongside Sanji's lean, very comfortable body. Zoro adjusted his grip for the new position, sliding his palm over the head and finding it slippery-wet before tightening around the shaft again. He felt every little shift Sanji made as he reacted to the strokes, altering the speed as Sanji moved up into his grip.

Maybe it was the leftover effects of the vampire's induced lust and the heightened impact of his scent, or the way Sanji's mouth was just barely open, lips touched with a sheen of saliva from when he'd licked them a moment before, and showed a wet, red tongue… whatever it was, Zoro leaned in to kiss him.

Sanji's mouth opened easily, lips parting farther with no hesitation. Zoro's tongue dipped in, slid to one side and the other to find each fang. Sanji closed his teeth lightly each time, and Zoro felt a low thrill at the pretense of threat. Too long hunting the full-blooded ones, perhaps, because those fangs, though they didn't drain the life of Sanji's... meal companions... they recalled the adrenaline of a fight, of the pure, bloody end of one of his hunts. The suggestion of risk without the danger.

Well. Not completely without danger. He knew Sanji could fight. The memory of their initial encounter was still perfectly sharp. Sanji fought better than most and the thought of training against him, fighting someone against whom, for the first time since he’d lost Kuina, would be a real opponent, was appealing…

More appealing just now, though, was feeling him as he was driven to orgasm. Zoro had felt him in combat, leaping and dodging and kicking, felt him near-motionless and cold and clinging, felt him come alive with warm, pliable heat. And now, Sanji rolled towards him, his kiss altering from slow to eager enjoyment. He raised his arm to sling around Zoro's neck, and tightened it, anchoring himself to thrust up into Zoro's hand. The kiss broke when Sanji's thrusts turned jerky and rough, and Zoro grinned, eyes fixed on the flushed face, the parted mouth with fangs showing. Those fangs bit down on his lower lip for a second, and his cock pulsed in Zoro's hand, warm seed landing on his stomach. Sanji's hips continued short, almost reluctant little thrusts, and Zoro lightened his grip, holding him to feel the last twitching aftershocks.

He let go, but Sanji didn't move away, just lay, his arm still over Zoro's neck.

"Thanks," came a contented sigh. Zoro made a vague noise of not-unfriendly acknowledgment.

*

They lay awhile. Zoro found it surprisingly comfortable, even remembering the absurd path that had led him here.

Sanji spoke, eventually. "For a shitty swordsman, you can be pretty useful." Sanji blinked his eye open, sleepy blue glinting with amusement and not a little challenge.

Zoro snorted. "For a half-breed vamp, you're no good at killing innocents. Can't get any bounty off that."

Sanji smiled then, hiding a flicker of gratitude by baring his fangs. Zoro reached out and pushed his thumb against one. Blunt as any human canine, just longer. Sanji reached up and curled a finger around one of Zoro's horns, tugging lightly. "Half-breeds are occasionally misunderstood, mosshead." He rolled away then, flopping onto his back with a long breath out. His eye slid shut, and Zoro sat up carefully, sitting by him and watching him fall asleep. Rousing before he'd dozed off fully, Sanji looked upward at the ceiling. "I wanted to go... before all this." he said softly. "Wanted to find the Blue Wood. Fucking Krieg."

"Blue Wood," Zoro repeated. That was a myth. A forest where plants and animals from everywhere somehow managed to live in the same place. Zoro supposed, for a cook, that was heaven. "You can go," Zoro said, and continued over Sanji's incredulous look of insulted anger. "Just kill the fucker, make your people safe, go find your forest."

The bitterness Zoro had seen earlier, when Sanji had been enlightening him about Krieg's destruction of his old life, settled back over his face. "I would if I could," he bit off. "Krieg doesn’t know I’m not dead. His armsmen just failed to actually catch me, when I hit the woods. Why do you think they hired you? They couldn’t get me back then, but they told him they had. If I went after him now, in that fortress he’s got, and lost, he’d kill half the town in retaliation." Sanji clenched his teeth shut, gave Zoro an annoyed glance, then stared upward, his frustration hidden again.

"Well, don't lose then, moron." He ignored the resurgence of Sanji's anger at those words and went on before Sanji could finish taking a breath to respond, "just get reinforcements. 'Course... I guess help is hard to come by," Zoro remarked. "Since you’re pretty much an outlaw."

Sanji looked right at him then, face suddenly still and cautious. "Yeah. And what does that make you? You came here to execute a contracted bounty. You didn't exactly follow through."

"Might be an outlaw around here myself, now that you mention it," Zoro said, raising one hand to scratch the back of his head as if thoughtful.

"Might be," Sanji replied slowly, eye narrowing. "Anyway... Stay, if you want," he said shortly, and moved around on the bed, shoving at the blanket until he could get under it. He rolled over, shoulders suddenly a little tenser than they'd been a moment before.

"Mm. Nowhere else to be, right now," Zoro replied, and saw those shoulders relax.

Time to start back on the true path to his goal, and this seemed as good a place as any to begin. Well, no, he corrected himself, studying Sanji's lean, pale back. It was a better place than most.

He kept watching, and got to see Sanji relax even further, until sleep stole over him properly. After a brush with fading to death, rest would do him good.

Zoro got up, then, padded to the other side of the bed and retrieved his swords, carrying them over to the table.

He cast a glance at the hearth. The logs he'd tossed in earlier were almost completely gone already, which he’d expected. Ace had to be exceptionally tough, and, from what Zoro had seen, pretty damned motivated. But that heroic effort would have made him as starved as Sanji. He tossed another three logs on the ash-choked coals, and wondered idly if Ace made his own bed or if it was up to Sanji to clean that mess out.

Ace manifested after the logs landed, tiny but human-looking now, only a suggestion of fire-glow under tanned skin and at the tips of his black hair, pretending the same black shorts and boots he’d manifested earlier along with the rest of his preferred human look. Faeries could be odd and particular about their illusion of clothing, and while they didn't generally bother with any when so small, with a brand like Ace was marked with, control over his appearance was probably something he found especially important.

Zoro crouched so they were nearer face to face. Ace jumped to stand on the highest log, leaped up to hover and look in Sanji’s direction, then gave Zoro a once-over. The appreciative look on the diminutive freckled face didn’t bother him this time. “You really did help,” Ace said, relief in his voice, and he drifted back down to the log, landing in a casual squat.

"Yeah," Zoro said. "Might be here a while, though." Fair warning for the other resident of this place.

Ace shrugged. "I’m sure we can find a use for you," he said, grinning. Then his expression turned sincere, and he stood up straight. "Thank you."

Zoro just nodded.

Ace jumped down into the coals to shove at the logs, rearranging them to his liking. He flowed back into flame again, smoke from the logs starting to rise slowly. Zoro got to his feet.

Wait. He paused as he was about to move away and looked again. Smoke? Ace burned cleanly.

Zoro snorted. Ace would probably be just fine, then. He headed back to bed. There'd be fighting to do soon enough.


End file.
